LinkedIn rolls out video creation plus the week’s other social media news

Here’s the replay of Monday 21 August’s The #SocialMediaShow which was broadcast live via my Facebook Profile from Cardiff. This week we have 20 social media news stories with insights in italics plus the usual features – Headline, Question Time, Top Tip, Tools Talk, Number of the Week plus a quirky story from the world of social media and of course And Finally.

The #SocialMediaShow is aimed at people who work with or who are interested in social media. If that’s you, and you want to keep up on the latest news throughout the week plus get access to insider tips, then check out Social Media Professionals or keep in touch for free by joining my newsletter subscribers.

FACEBOOK NEWS
1. Facebook have launched a new news feed design on mobile apps. There’s an improved look and feel including rounded profile photos and icons plus threaded comments. Will there be rounded profile photos on Pages too? Page admins everywhere are getting ready to put their heads in their hands.
2. There’s a new ‘Pages You Manage’ feature on Personal Profiles although it doesn’t appear to allow you to publish Pages from Business Manager. A good opportunity to display Pages you’re associated with.
3. There are now improved insights about your branded content. This when you teamed up with a creator/influencer and get them to promote a brand.
4. eBay’s Daily Deals are being tested within Marketplace on both the Android and iOS Facebook mobile apps. Rumour has it other retailers could be joining in the fun soon.
5. Talking of Marketplace …FB is rolling it out to more European countries so most of Europe has the buying/selling feature now.
6. Facebook is creating a couple of features around your birthday. It’s in the US only at the moment where you can donate your birthday via the Fundraisers tool (another US only feature) plus videos can be created by your friends who can add personalised images.
7. More hardware news this week – Facebook have filed a patent for Augmented Reality glasses. Facebook on your face….there’s a joke there somewhere.
8. There’s a video clickbait purge going on. Images with fake play button and fake videos eg with silent sound are being pushed down News Feed. Spammers have been using these techniques to game the News Feed.10. There’s a new settingI’ve spotted which appears to allow you to set your Message box to popup for users when they are visiting your Page on desktop. Called ‘Prompt visitors to send messages’ you can find this setting under Settings/Messaging. It appears to be off by default so make sure you switch it on.

FACEBOOK ADS NEWS
11. Last week I mentioned that video creators on Facebook Watch, the new video service, will be able to monetise through Ad Breaks. This has been confirmed and advertisers will be able to buy in-stream placements in videos on Facebook, on Audience Network or across both.
12. Marketers can now directly boost influencers/creators Facebook Posts. The creator simply needs to give the marketer permission to boost the post when they compose their message and tag their Page using the branded content tool. The boosted appears as normal on the influencers/creators Page.

FACEBOOK LIVE NEWS
13. If you use FB Live from a Page on Desktop – you’re are able to embed a livestream of Facebook Live BEFORE you go live. HT to Krishna De for that one.

FACEBOOK MESSENGER NEWS
14. Facebook M has officially launched in the UK and Australia. Facebook’s assistant which aims to rival Siri or Alexa will interject into conversations offering Plans, Stickers and to Share a location. The idea is to keep you on Facebook but if you don’t like it, you can disable it.

INSTAGRAM NEWS
15.Threaded comments are coming soon. Instagram will roll out this update worldwide to both iOS and Android in the coming weeks. Should make for easier to follow conversations.

LINKEDIN NEWS
16. LinkedIn’s new video creation tool is being rolled out on mobile apps allowing users to create and publish videos on LinkedIn. It will be interesting to see how it’s used. Maybe I’ll do a #LinkedInShow?
17. You may have noticed a new green dot which is showing who is active on LinkedIn in Messages. A white circle within the dot indicates that a connection is only available on mobile and will be notified of your message. A great improvement to Messages and it should prove really useful.
18. US District Judge Edward Chen has ruled in court that LinkedIn must allow companies to continue to scrape data from public user profiles on the site. I think this is fair enough, as after all the data is public. If you object to this then keep your profile restricted to LinkedIn only.

PINTEREST NEWS
19. A new pinch to zoom feature is rolling out to all pins on iOS devices on Pinterest with Android following soon. Nice.
20. Improvements to visual search are coming – Pinterest has announced an updated look for the visual search tool that makes the button “clearer… [and] a little easier to reach” and expanded this new feature to the Pinterest Save Button, the Chrome browser extension that allows visual searches without a Pinterest account.

And finally:
A 61-year-old woman stuck in a swimming pool was rescued by members of a Facebook Group after she posted a help message on the social media network. Leslie Kahn, from the US state of New Hampshire, was stuck in the pool last Friday. She was at the end of a swim in her backyard pool when the step ladder she used broke ad she was trapped before a neighbour read her post and came to her rescue.

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